


Project Spyder

by amateurexorcist



Series: The Spyders [1]
Category: Daredevil (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: ?? - Freeform, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Dark, Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Angst, BAMF Peter Parker, Blood and Gore, Blood and Injury, Brainwashing, Brutal Murder, Child Soldiers, Crime Fighting, Crimes & Criminals, Dark Peter Parker, F/M, Gwen Stacy Lives, Heavy Angst, Hurt Frank Castle, Hurt Gwen Stacy, Hurt Matt Murdock, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt Peter Parker, Hurt/Comfort, Hydra (Marvel), Hydra Peter Parker, I wrote this in less than a week, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Murder, POV Outsider, Serial Killers, They are both very sad, Torture, Unreliable Narrator, Whump, but peter murders quite a few pedos, gwen is a toired gurl, it changes povs and a lot of them are outsider, it has TEN separate povs, its talked about kinda vaguely, kind of a crossover with earth-65, like one of the pov characters is a serial killer, motivation finally graced my presence, my gay is showing isnt it, no beta we just die, peter is a murderous vigilante, peter is an angery boi, shes in this bb, so thats why i decided to just go with implied/refrenced and not the warning tag, the fic isnt about any of them, the ships are kinda sorta background, their crimes are mentioned in passing and are never depicted, theyre just sorta here, this fic has way too many povs, this fic is angst CITY, very vague refrences to it but still, yuri is an officer instead of a captain in this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-08
Updated: 2020-05-08
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:27:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23934550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amateurexorcist/pseuds/amateurexorcist
Summary: The Avengers raid a Hydra base, only to find everyone inside already dead. Butchered, in fact. They had been holding something, and it had gotten out.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers, Matt Murdock/Franklin "Foggy" Nelson, Michelle Jones/Gwen Stacy, Pepper Potts/Tony Stark
Series: The Spyders [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1738189
Comments: 21
Kudos: 343





	Project Spyder

Jack had a type.

He liked 'em skinny. And he was more of an ass guy than a tits guy. Y'know? Long, blonde hair was always a pretty plus. And damn did he like curves, and long, long legs that just kept on goin'. Sure, he liked himself a nice woman in general. But he still had a type.

The gal' a block ahead was one such woman. Jack didn't know her name. But he did know that she was a stripper that worked late, and that she walked home alone. That she was somewhere between 18 and 22. And, more importantly, that she lived in the Bronx. The Bronx didn't have some freakshow patrollin' its streets by night.

She didn't know that he was followin' her yet, but she was skittish anyway. Some cops had found his girl from last month a few days ago. The fright in the people hadn't worn off yet. That was fine. It made people lock up later. 'Left girls like her a bit more lonely.

New York was the city that never sleeps, and while that was true, his girl was startin' to walk down a street that was quieter and darker than most. Jack sped up, but he was still careful to move casual-like and take quiet steps. He couldn't have her hearin' him comin' now.

When he was a few yards or so behind her, he pulled his switch-blade from his pocket and unfolded it from the bandana he kept it wrapped in, makin' sure that the cloth covered his fingers and hand nicely. It wouldn't do to get himself messy. She still didn't have a damn clue, just walkin' on all brisk and nice. Damn, those hips...

His blood was startin' to run hot now. There was a real shady alleyway just a few short feet ahead. All he had to do was wait for her to get up to there. Then he could rush her, drag her back. Put the blade to that pretty, slim, swan-neck and-

That didn't happen.

Somethin' grabbed _him_ from behind, wrapping an arm around his neck all tight so that he couldn't even breathe. He fumbled to swing the knife backwards, but the stranger grabbed it with their free hand and wrenched it out of his grip with a strength he couldn't match. The girl kept on walkin', unaware. The fella holdin' him started to drag him backwards. But they didn't go into an alley, no. Instead, he was forcibly dragged up the side of a _sheer building._ He tried to kick and struggle, but without any air there was no strength to it.

The stranger released their grip on his windpipe when they reached the rooftop. Jack gasped like a dyin' man as he fell to the ground and fumbled to face his assailant.

The stranger- a young man- was crouched down beside him. He had a dark anger to his eyes, the eyes of a mad bull, they were. His teeth were bared like a beast, and he had _fangs_ , fucking _fangs_ like a damn vampire. The man held Jack's switch-blade in one hand, casually turning it over. He glanced down at the knife, then back up at Jack.

He man spoke. All slow-like. A hiss to his 'a's and 's's.

"Bad things happen to bad people." The man adjusted his grip on the knife. "And you... Are a very, very bad person."

The last thing Jack saw was all fangs, spittle, and somethin' darker, then he saw nothin'.

Amy thought she heard something behind her. A rustle, maybe? A scuttle. Normally she'd pass it off as a rat, but with what had been happening lately, it made her nervous. She didn't want to be a body like poor Abby, or missing like the countless other women who disappeared without a trace. Lord knew that her job would make the cops more hesitant to find her. So she took a cautious glance over her shoulder.

There was nothing there, besides the usual grit and grime of the street. There were two rats fighting over some scrap of food in a nearby alley. Nothing out of the ordinary, at least. But wait-

There was a well-worn red bandana on the ground. One that hadn't been there when she had walked past. Amy looked around. The street was completely empty, not a soul in sight. She should really be hurrying on her way. She needed to catch some sleep so she wouldn't be tired for her 8 AM class at Columbia. But still...

She gingerly walked over to the bandana and picked it up. It felt smooth and thread-bare in some spots. Whoever had been using it probably had it for a while.

Despite a bit of grime from the part that directly touched the filthy ground, it was very clean, recently dropped then. The thought sent a shiver down her spine. She had been so certain that nobody else was around, but someone had to have been only a yard or so behind her to have dropped this.

But when she looked closer, her heart stopped in her chest. There were stains on it. They were a only a few shades darker than the cloth itself. And she _recognized_ that color. Amy used to get frequent nosebleeds as a kid, and she still remembered what a bloodstain looked like. It looked vaguely like rusted iron, but a bit darker. She'd know it.

Surely enough, when she lifted it up to her nose to take a sniff, it _reeked_ of copper.

They learned about the base thanks to transmissions that Tony had been able to hack into. It was very, very secretive. One of the locations that a Hydra agent would need insanely high clearance to get into. It was a pretty big deal. They didn't know what was inside of it, as all communication used an absolutely _absurd_ amount of code words, so because of that they had to go in full force. There was no telling what would be inside.

"There's something wrong." Steve's voice rang over the comms. "The door- its destroyed."

"Someone beat us here?" Tony paused before deciding to make his way over to the door. He was supposed to be hanging back with Wanda and Vis while Steve, Barnes, Nat and Clint made a quick sting to see what they were up against. Sam and Rhodey were at the Compound, still recovering from a raid gone wrong a few months ago. Tony waved at Vis and Wanda to tell them to stay back.

"No-" He could hear Steve mumbling something that he couldn't pick up. "It was uh. Forced open from the inside."

"What?" Tony landed next to them, and surely enough, the door had been beaten in with something. A heavily dented pole about the length of a person's forearm that leaned on the wall beside it looked to be the likely culprit. It also, noticeably, had a good deal of dried blood on it. "Oh, _Jesus_."

"Someone really should have noticed that we're here by now." Bucky interjected, fidgeting with his gun. "We've been standing out in the open, and Stark's suit isn't exactly quiet."

A few seconds passed in silence.

"Yeah." Steve shifted, hefting his shield uncomfortably. "We should check inside. Try to figure out what happened here. Lord knows we don't need to deal with something strong enough to oust Hydra."

"Maybe they good make a good ally?" Clint offered, his voice sounded almost falsely hopeful. Like he knew just as well as they did that it was unlikely.

"Maybe they're trying to do the same thing Hydra does." Natasha pointed out, voice dark. "And just wanted to branch off."

Clint's throat bobbed as he swallowed. "Yeah, you're probably right."

Steve stepped towards and shoved at the door with his shoulder. It had been bashed to shit at its hinges, so it moved with little effort. Immediately, Steve, Clint, and Bucky started to gag, and Natasha grimaced.

"What the fuck is that smell?" Steve wheezed, covering his mouth and nose with a hand.

"Decomp." Natasha replied, unnerving smooth about it. She pulled four pieces of cloth from some of the seemingly endless hidden pouches on her person. She passed three of them to Clint, Bucky, and Steve and lifted the third to her own face. Tony was incredibly glad that his suit blocked him from the outside world. He had a feeling that he didn't want to be smelling that.

"Jesus." Bucky cursed quietly.

"I think I'll uh-" Clint breathed raggedly. "Stay here, keep an eye out?"

"Alright." Steve nodded in his direction then stepped through the threshold. Followed by Natasha, then Bucky, with Tony bringing up the rear.

Tony stepped inside the base.

It was a small room, likely just an entryway. There was no furniture, and directly across from them was another door that was similarly broken, that door was incredibly narrow, and more of the focus was put on destroying a lock. The whole room reminded Tony, oddly, of the entrance to a butterfly room in a zoo, with the double doors used to ensure that none of the bugs got out.

There were two bodies slumped in the room. Both wore black, padded armor with the Hydra insignia emblazoned on them. They were in pools of long-dried blood, seemingly coming from their heads. The bodies were too bloated from decomposition to tell what had killed them, but one could guess. Blunt force trauma, maybe? Probably with that pole?

"There's nothing to see here." Natasha's tone was prickly, defensive. Something was making her uncomfortable. "We need to get a move on. See if we can't figure out what happened."

"Yes ma'am." Tony intoned. He knew better than to mess with Nat when she got like that.

Steve marched over to the other door and forced it open with his shoulder. It screeched loudly when the metal dragged against the concrete floor. The thing about the door was that it was almost comically narrow, so Steve's broad shoulders blocked the entire view of the next room, and Bucky did much the same. Natasha was sort of sending off 'don't look at me' vibes, so he glanced away from the doorway when she went through. It wasn't until Tony stepped inside that he was able to see what had happened.

There were _dozens_ of bodies littered around the small, cramped room. Most of them were dressed like the two in the entrance, but two of them wore what were probably once pristine, white lab coats, but now were thoroughly discolored with blood and rot. But that wasn't all. The entire room was lined wall to wall with black stains. Old blood.

"Jesus, fucking _hell_." Tony hissed. Being a superhero meant he saw a lot of shit, but this was more than a bit above his threshold.

The room was also very long and rectangular, and it had plenty of tables. Some were built directly into the ground, others had been knocked over because they weren't. Papers were scattered and ruined. There were shards of glass that crunched underfoot from broken tablets, beakers, and god knew what else.

But at the end of the room he could see a third, and final door. This one hung off its hinges, barely clinging on, giving them all a view of what was inside. He could see broken metal cuffs inside the room and a fractured metal pole that ran along the back of it, seemingly where the escapee had gotten their weapon from. Both of them had the familiar sheen of vibranium, and scratches that made it look like the person held here had worn their cuffs down by rubbing them on the pole for a very, very long time.

"Looks like they didn't keep any digital files." Natasha noted, picking up one of the torn and bloodied sheets of paper. "Unusual for the modern day, but I guess it meant that, evidently, it was easy to destroy."

But... Under all that blood and grime, he could just barely make out large words on a wall. The only clue on what maybe happened here. What Hydra had created, and what had escaped. What had been able to kill so many armed, trained men like it was nothing.

**PROJECT SPYDER**

Chloe was playing with her dolls.

You see, Barbie was the leader of a re-vo-lut-ion, which means a big fight for good things, against evil Gracie and her army! Barbie's best friend, Steve, had just been kid-napp-ed, which means to steal a person.

Barbie was about to fight Gracie one-on-one when Chloe had to go pee, so she tip-toed over to her door. The carpet soft and puffy under her feet.

Chloe wasn't supposed to be up. She was supposed to be sleeping. So to go to the bathroom, she'd have to be sneaky. So sneaky! Like Black Widow and Hawkeye! Chloe opened her door and peeked around. She could hear Daddy snoring in his room, so she walked across the hall to go. 

She went without any problems, wiped, and washed her hands. But when she left the bathroom, there was someone in the hallway.

He was a big kid. A high school kid. He was very skinny like her old Kindergarten teacher, Ms. Garden, and he had messy hair like he'd just woken up.

He looked at her at her. She blinked up at him. When he noticed her, he looked surprised for a moment, but then he looked sad.

"What are you doing in my house." She whispered, sounding very much like a mouse, he looked scary, standing in the dark. He looked at her without speaking for a long moment.

"I am a friend of your father's." He spoke funny. Like Jimmy from the grade below her who had a lisp, but the big kid didn't have a lisp. He spoke... Funny. That was all. She couldn't describe what was wrong with it.

Well... Dad did have friends over all the time. Chloe was supposed to play in her room alone when they came over, but none of them were kids. Not even big kids. They were all old enough to have kids like Chloe. She thought that maybe the youngest one she'd ever seen was a woman who was old enough to be in college.

The big kid seemed to think for a moment before squatting down. When he did that, he was shorter than Chloe.

"Do you want to play a game?" He whispered. He smiled at her too. It was a smile with no teeth, and it didn't reach his eyes, which were very brown.

Chloe grinned ear to ear, and opened her mouth to talk, but he made a 'shh' motion with a finger against her lips.

"Its a quiet game." His mouth turned up at the right corner, but then it went straight again.

"Like hide-and-go-seek?" Chloe whispered back to him.

He smiled, and there was something weird in his eyes. He looked even sadder than before. "Yes. Like that a lot."

The big kid stood up and picked up a phone from on a table in the hallway. When he moved, he didn't make a sound, like a kitty cat. He squatted back down and handed her the phone. "You need to go hide under your bed, okay? Close the door behind you. I'll come knock on it in a few minutes. When I do, you need to call a number on that phone, got that?"

"Then what?" It sounded like a strange game. But it sounded like it could lead to something very fun!

"Then some people will come and talk to you. They'll explain it for you." He gave her another smile. "Can you remember the number, its only three numbers long, okay?"

"I can remember! I can remember it so good!" Chloe whispered, but it was impossible to keep the excitement out of her voice. This was a fun new game!

"Okay." He blinked slowly, like the lizard they kept as a class pet. "Nine. One. One. You got that?"

Chloe could have sworn that the number was familiar. Maybe she heard it in class? "Yes!"

"Okay, good." The big kid stood back up slowly, unbending his legs like the giraffes in nature documentaries. "Now, go."

Chloe raced back to her room. This was a very new game! She'd never played anything like this before!

She shut the door but then she paused.

Chloe wasn't afraid of the dark, only _babies_ were afraid of the dark. Chloe wasn't a baby, she was three and a half! But still... Something about her room felt very scary right then. So, instead of going under alone, she took Barbie and Steve with her. She could play the game with them later. This game was more important, because nobody ever wanted to play with her. Especially big kids.

She laid there under the bed for a long time. Chloe played a quick game with the toys, but something just felt... Bad. Really bad. Like that time Daddy took her to Niagara Falls and someone got very close to it, so Daddy made her leave right away. Or when Mommy fell and hit her head bad and wouldn't wake up. 

Suddenly, there was a rap at the door.

The game! She dialed the number, 9 and 1 and 1, and held it up to her ear.

"911, what's your emergency?" A woman on the other side spoke.

Chloe frowned. That person didn't sound very happy. Wasn't this a game? "The man told me to call you."

"A man?"

"He was in my hallway. He told me to hide under the bed and call you."

"Do you know the address of where you are?"

"Yes." Daddy had taught her it good, in case she ever got lost. "The penthouse at the corner of 15 and 20."

"Alright. We have a squad car a block away, they're on their way. You need to stay where you are. What's your name?"

"M' Chloe." Chloe didn't know what was happening. This didn't feel like a game anymore. She felt very, very sick.

"Alright, Chloe." The woman said. "How old are you?"

"I'm three and a half."

"Okay. Chloe, I'm going to need you to be very brave for me, okay? This is scary, I know, but we'll help you."

There was banging on their front door, loud enough that she could hear it even from under the bed. She cringed and let out a whimper

"NYPD, open up!"

The _police_ , that's where she remembered the number from. They'd had a lesson on safety last year in school. She heard the splintering of wood as the policemen forced their way inside. Then there were voices from the hallway, a muffled bad word that she knew she wasn't supposed to repeat, then running footsteps towards her room.

Someone opened her door. She could see their boots, which were black with thick soles. The policeman walked over to her and bent down so they could look at Chloe.

"Kid, we need to get you out of here." It was a woman. She was Asian and had hair that stopped just before her shoulders. Her eyes were very dark and serious. "Come on." The woman offered her a hand. Chloe took it.

"Chloe, that's your name right?" She tugged a blanket off of Chloe's bed and wrapped it loosely around her head and chest so she couldn't see anything. She nodded into the blanket, and the woman kept talking. "My name is Officer Yuriko Watanabe."

"I can't see."

"I know, Chloe." Miss? Officer? Watanabe put her hands on Chloe's shoulders. "I won't let you trip, okay? You can take off the blanket when we're in the elevator."

"Where's my Daddy?"

"I'll tell you later, kid." Officer Watanabe sounded very nice, and was being gentle, but she sounded upset. She started to steer Chloe out of her room and into the hallway. "Right now we're worrying about you, okay?"

"Okay." Chloe could kinda see the lights through the blanket, and when she looked down she could see her feet, but that was it. She could trust the police though, right? Officer Watanabe wouldn't let her fall.

"I've got the kid. How far away is backup?" Officer Watanabe said, not to Chloe. She could see the edges of someone else's boots, the same boots that Officer Watanabe wore.

"About ten minutes out, you taking her to the car?" A woman spoke. Chloe knew that Officers worked together, so that must be her partner.

"Yes. She shouldn't stay in here." Officer Watanabe squeezed Chloe's shoulders.

"Got it, take good care of her, Yuri."

"I will, Carls." Officer Watanabe started walking again, nudging Chloe into the elevator. It was only after she could hear the elevator doors slide shut that the woman tugged the blanket off of Chloe's head then wrapped her up in it again so it hung off her shoulder like a cape.

"Where's my Daddy?" Chloe asked again, looking up at Officer Watanabe. The woman made a tight frown.

"Your father-" Officer Watanabe swallowed and kneeled down in front of her. The woman put her hands on Chloe's shoulders. "Your father is dead, Chloe."

"What?" Chloe's world went gray, like an old movie. It was like just a year ago, when she heard the news from Daddy that Mommy wouldn't be coming home.

"He's dead, kid." Officer Watanabe tightened her grip.

"He's with my Mommy in heaven, right?" Chloe couldn't move. "Right?"

"Sure." Officer Watanabe stared at the blinking floor numbers as they went down. "Sure he is."

They were supposed to be having board game night. It was going to be nice, and friendly, and a way to distract them from the recent murders. Sure, the fucker was only attacking criminals, and the worst of the worst at that, but anyone could be disturbed by the brutality of the killings. Each of them had chosen a game. Ned brought Monopoly, Gwen chose Exploding Kittens, and MJ picked Betrayal at House on the Hill.

But, shit. That didn't happen.

Ned lost Exploding Kittens incredibly quickly, so he scrolled on his phone while he waited for her and Gwen to finish. Just as MJ got herself another defuse card, he gasped and dropped his phone. He scrambled to pick it back up.

"Guys, oh my god, guys." Ned fumbled to show them his screen. "Another guy- there's another guy."

"What the hell to you mean by that?" MJ peered at the screen, then inhaled. It was showing the front page of a recent blog dedicated to documenting all things Biter.

_New York Biter Strikes Again!_

_Last night, 6 year old Chloe Decker left her bedroom to use the bathroom, on her way back to bed she encountered a young man, who police suspect may be the Biter. He convinced her to hide under her bed and call the authorities when he told her to, under the guise of a game. While Chloe was under her bed, the Biter tortured and killed her father, Mr. Conrad Decker. Unlike with his previous victims, the Biter did not allow Decker to scream or plead, instead, he removed the man's vocal cords, likely to keep him from alerting Chloe in the next room._

_Decker is the fourth confirmed victim of the Biter, who carved the words "Mob Boss" into Decker's chest, making him the first member of organized crime to be murdered by the Biter, his three previous killings being a serial killer and two pedophiles._

_Chloe may very well be the only person to encounter the Biter and live to tell the tale. The police are working with her to get an accurate picture of what he might look like. A confirmed description of him includes that he is young with curly brown hair..... Read more._

_What is the Biter?  
_

_Everyone knows that the infamous Biter of NYC earned his name from his method of killing, biting his victims until they bled before injecting venom into the open wound. Scientists are still unable to verify what form of venom he utilizes, as the chemical makeup is unusual. However, there are noted similarities to the venom of an arachnid. The current theory is that the Biter extracts venom from a spider, then somehow mixes it with another substance... Read more._

"Holy shit." MJ couldn't keep in her shock. The Biter had taken his third victim only a few days ago, he wasn't supposed to make a move again for another week. How could someone move and kill _that fast?_ "He removed that man's _vocal cords_?"

"Apparently." Ned drew the phone closer to himself. "I mean, lets get thinking on that though. To do that, he'd need to have some kind of training in anatomy, the voice box is part of the windpipe, one wrong cut and he would have died from being unable to breathe. That should narrow it down."

"Sure, that will narrow it down to every doctor and butcher in the city, Leeds."

"That's still a lot more narrow then 'literally anybody', MJ. Also, we didn't even know for sure if he was a man before now. Now we do. We even got a bit of a physical description!"

Gwen hadn't said a word during their entire conversation. She looked very pale, and she was doing that thing that she did when she was feeling nervous or self-conscious, where she would press a hand up to her mouth and say nothing. Well, she always did that when she was talking, but when she did it without saying a word, then something was wrong.

MJ put wrapped an arm around Gwen, and much to her shock, her girlfriend full-body flinched and wriggled out of her grip.

"I should head home." Gwen stood up, tucking her hair behind her ears. "My dad- you know how paranoid he can get about me. I should hurry." She didn't even wait for a reply, just booking it out the door. She even left Exploding Kittens behind.

Ned gave MJ a long look, she glared at him and he looked away.

"What are you looking at, Leeds."

"I don't know, I just-" He threw up his hands. "-that was weird, wasn't that weird?"

"Oh I dunno, maybe something we mentioned was a trigger? Such as torture? These killings have been bothering her, you know that. It's the entire _reason_ we had game night." MJ looked down at her hands. "She has trauma, and nobody knows for sure what her triggers are, and we all know that she hates cooperating with her therapist. She just... Bottles it up and internalizes it until she bursts."

"I wish she would." Ned leaned back. "Uh- cooperate with her therapist, I mean. What she's doing isn't healthy."

"I know." MJ ran a hand through her hair then started to clean up the loose cards on the floor. "I wish she would to. I mean. I really care about her, I care about her so much. What significant other wouldn't? She just-"

"Doesn't process her trauma well?" Ned tried.

"Doesn't try to, honestly. I get that she wants to try to live a normal life, I really do, but this- it isn't the way to go about it." MJ slumped over. She tried to get the cards back in their box, but her hands were shaking too much. "I wish she'd- you know. Try."

"Yeah." Ned rocked forwards, awkwardly setting a hand on her shoulder. "I know."

"I'm just- I worry, you know? That one day something will happen or she'll see something that will send her over the edge."

"I know, that's a rational fear." Ned squeezed her shoulder. "But- she can't be helped if she doesn't want help."

"I know!" MJ's voice got high. "I just- I can't-" She bit down into her hand before she could get too emotional. A spark of copper stung on her tongue. "I think I should get a drink of water."

"I'll go get you some." Ned said quickly, standing up. He rushed to her kitchen, and all she could do was watch his retreating back. And hope that Gwen was going to be okay. Something was wrong, and she had no idea what to do.

Matt hated Frank.

Frank was a prick. And a murderer. Matt really, really hated Frank. He'd be happy to never have to interact with him, ever. But people don't always get what they want. And well. He supposed that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend", and when you are a vigilante who is brutal enough that _The Punisher_ thinks you're a problem, then that's bad news.

The Biter was really, really good at what he was doing. The police had lifted DNA from his crime scenes, but it was later proven to be not human, though they didn't know what it was quite yet. They had nothing going for them other than he was a young guy with brown hair. Which was, you know, more that 25% of the American population.

But they had a hunch that he was less like Matt and more like Frank, with no life outside of his vigilantism, thanks to the fact that his now six confirmed murders happened during radically different times of the day and night.

Which meant, of course, that he probably wasn't living in a normal house, and instead had some kind of hidden base that he could retreat to in order to lick his wounds and plan another attack. Frank had intimate knowledge of just about every one of these locations throughout the city.

Matt had gotten the call right after he got out of work, informing him that he'd found food scraps around one of the harder to reach safehouses, and that they should probably check it out.

Which was how Matt found himself standing outside of what was probably once a very nice bodega. The whole place smelled strongly of wood rot and mildew, but there was the slightest undercurrent of blood.

"This is definitely the place." Matt slipped his billy clubs out of their holsters, tilting his head to the side to listen for a heartbeat. He couldn't hear one, but the Biter could be out. Or meditating.

"How d'ya know that, Red?" Castle's safety clicked off.

"I can smell the blo-"

"Never mind, I regret asking." Castle cut him off. A moment passed, then the man waved forwards with the nose of his gun. "After you."

Matt stalked forwards. He carefully tracked everything he could hear inside the abandoned bodega. There was a pigeon in the ceiling, fluttering around. And a... Ceiling fan? It was odd that something electronical would still be running inside a building as worn down as this one. But what else could it be? There was a sound like a flutter, and closer to the wall there was an electric buzz.

He entered the building slowly. The pigeon spooked and darted through a gap in the ceiling. The ceiling fan buzzed on.

"It's empty." Matt sighed, lowering his billy clubs but not putting them away.

"Hmmm..." He heard Castle flick a flashlight on, right before the man walked straight into a table. Dust scattered in the air. "Fucking-!"

Matt had to stifle a cough. The air was very still, and he couldn't help but wish that it had some kind of ventilation.

...Wait a minute.

He grabbed the flashlight from Castle and shined it up towards the ceiling fan.

Something up there _hissed_ , angry and animalistic. The flutter had been an irregular heart. He had no _idea_ what the static sounds were, but they didn't matter.

Far faster than he could react, something tackled him to the ground.

Foggy was woken up by his phone ringing.

Normally he'd just silence it and go back to sleep, but it wasn't his cellphone that was ringing. It was the burner. He scrambled to flip it open and hold it up to his ear. The only people that had his burner number were Matt and Claire, and neither of them would call him on it unless something was wrong.

"Hello?"

"Foggy." Claire's voice was on the other end. "You should come to my apartment."

"What?!" Foggy was already getting up. He pulled off his sleep pants and pulled on a pair of sweatpants, followed by an old Columbia hoodie. "What's Matt done now?"

"He and Castle tried to fight the Biter. They lost." He choked on his shock for a moment. There was an awkward rustling sound as Claire took the phone down away from her head, and then a muffled shouting. He could only make out a few curse words, after a moment she came back. It sounded like she was probably holding it up with her shoulder. "Okay, sorry about that. They're both being ridiculous right now."

"I'm on my way, Claire." He toed on his shoes and shrugged a jacket over his shoulder. "Wait a minute- _they_?"

"Yeah, Castle's here too. I'd say he actually got the worse of the two. Matt's mostly dealing with blunt force trauma to his torso, but it looks like the Biter went at Castle with something sharp." A few muttered voices came over the connection. "Castle says that the Biter beat Matt with some kind of metal object, but then it broke so he used it to hack and slash instead at Castle instead."

"Jesus- fucking." Foggy had never been more glad that Claire didn't live too far away, and that crime had been on the down low recently. Wait- _crime had been going down._ Why would Matt have needed to go out Daredeviling? Unless-

"He only went out tonight to deal with this new guy, didn't he?" Foggy hissed quietly across the connection. Claire sighed.

"Yes, he did."

"Goddamnit, Matt."

By the time he'd gotten to Claire's apartment, his legs and lungs were both killing him, he _really_ needed to get in better shape. Especially if he was going to be running around the city to keep Matt alive. He knocked on the door, a bit frantically. A few seconds later he heard the lock and deadbolt click open. The door opened a crack, a chain lock keeping it from opening any further.

Claire peered at him through the crack in the door, glanced out into the hallway, then quickly undid the chain lock and opened the door, all-but yanking him inside. She slammed the door shut as soon as he entered and re-locked everything.

The usual plastic cover was on the couch, and Castle was sprawled messily over it. He had taken off his shirt and vest, and even had to roll up the leg of one of his pants past the knee. He looked, frankly, cut to shit. Foggy counted at least a dozen wounds on him, most of them had stitches by now. He, and the couch, were coated in a decent amount of blood.

He saw Matt next. The man was hardly moving except for a weak, shuddering rise and fall of his chest. Matt rolled his head to the side and whined, making a vague grabby hand in Foggy's direction.

"Matt, hey. Hey." Foggy rushed to his side, taking his partner's hands in his own. "It's okay, I'm here." He rubbed his thumbs in circular motions on the backs of Matt's hands. He took a glance over to where Claire was diligently giving Castle stitches. "Wha-"

"Matt's got some broken ribs. Quite a few of them, actually. I think some of them might actually be broken in more that one spot." She didn't look up from her stitches. "And bruising. A lot of bruising. It's going to hurt him to walk, talk, and even breathe for about six weeks, maybe more."

"That thing wasn't human." Castle hissed, interjecting. "Moved faster than anything I've ever seen, too quick for me to even point my gun at. 'Soon as I'd level it the damn thing would be gone."

"The Biter?" Foggy spoke quietly, looking over to the man.

"What else would I be talkin' about?" Castle stayed stock-still as Claire did his stitches. "There I was, thinkin', damn, this guy's got some moxie. Sure, I'd kill the same scumbags its killed any day. But its methods turned even me off." Matt stiffened a bit when Castle mentioned his willingness to commit murder, but didn't say anything. "So I think, well, might as well get Red in on this. Better to go in with him then alone."

Nobody spoke for a moment. Foggy got the idea that this isn't the kind of thing you interrupt. His mouth felt incredibly dry.

"I'm telling ya, that _thing_ moved like a damn predator. And it looked and acted like an awful cross between a vampire and and a- a spider or something." Castle flinched minutely as Claire poked at a particularly bad wound. "I have no idea why it even let us live."

"Well." Matt wheezed, his voice sounding awfully weak. Foggy gripped his hands a bit tighter. "We're vigilantes. So is he."

" 'Don't think that was a 'he', Red." Castle closed his eyes. "You couldn't tell it was there for a while, remember?"

"He-" Matt had to stop his sentence halfway through, wheezing. Foggy's heart lurched. "-had a heartbeat like a... Not like a normal one. It was there but it was _wrong._ "

"See? Ain't human." Castle shifted as Claire pulled back, pulling off her gloves. "It was climbing on the _damn walls,_ and the _fucking ceiling._ Like that movie- The Fly."

"Foggy, there's a liquor store down the street." Claire went to dispose of the gloves. "I need you to run and grab me something at least a hundred proof, but more is better."

"Why do we need that?" Foggy loosened his hold on Matt, so they were only barely touching. Matt gave him a small squeeze before letting go. Matt panted a bit and nestled into the chair.

"I may not like Castle, but we don't need him to get an infection." The words were blunt, to the point. "Rubbing alcohol would be best, but I'm out of it, and the nearest store that sells it is outside of the Kitchen, we don't have the time to buy that right now."

"Oh." Foggy felt a faint wave of disgust at the idea of using booze for sanitization. "Yeah, I'll go."

He managed to score a bottle of Everclear at 189 proof. Which should do the job nicely. More than nicely. He was more than halfway back already, but was honestly not looking forward to having to help Matt get home with that many injuries. As he approached Claire's building, however, a man- more of a boy really- poked his head out from an alleyway.

"Hey." The kid shuffled awkwardly out into the street, not quite meeting Foggy's eyes. "I need to ask you something."

"Uh- sure, kid." Foggy glanced up and down the street. This felt a bit like a setup for a mugging. Send a kid out to distract someone then come up with a knife, or something? It sounded like it might work. "What do you need?"

"Are they alright?"

Wait, what?

"What are you talking about?" Foggy stuffed his hands into his pockets awkwardly and focused on his shoes.

"The vigilantes. The Devil n' the Punisher." The kid's voice took on a hushed tone. "I saw 'em. They weren't hiding too well when they went into that apartment. Neither were you." Foggy's heart seemed to stop for a moment.

"Wh-" Foggy sputtered. "You _what._ "

"Just answer the question." The boy's voice got snappy, but he quickly cooled himself. "Please."

"Uh-" Jesus H. Christ, what did Foggy say? "-They're okay. They'll live."

The boy closed his eyes, then nodded before booking it back down the alleyway like a bat out of hell. He didn't even say 'bye' or 'thanks', or 'so how do you know two vigilantes, I should report you to the police'.

"Uh- goodbye?" Foggy watched the kid turn the corner, quietly, to himself, he added, "Well, that was weird."

He hurried back to Claire's apartment, which was really only a few buildings away when the boy had stopped him. It really must have taken him less than ten minutes to get back inside.

"You two-" Foggy said, passing the bottle to Claire. "-have been getting sloppy."

"Sloppy?" Castle shifted around on the couch as Claire went off to the kitchen to open the bottle. Matt stiffened.

"Yeah, some random-ass guy saw you two going in here." Matt, at some point while he was gone, had migrated to a loveseat. Foggy settled down beside him.

"What?!" Frank and Matt said at the same time. Matt tried to get up, but let out a pained whine and collapsed back to the couch. Foggy took one of his hands in his own and gave it a squeeze.

"Some guy approached me and asked if 'the devil and the punisher' were going to live or not. Said he saw you two coming in here."

"Jesus fucking-" Castle spat bitterly. "-god _damn_." He shifted around on the couch, clenching and unclenching his hands furiously. "What did he look like?"

"I'm not helping you murder some random passerby, Castle." Foggy snapped back.

"I don't fuck with innocents, you know that." Castle narrowed his eyes at him. "I just- I need to know, like- There were a few people on the streets. Need t' know which one saw us. So I can avoid getting spotted by someone in a similar spot next time."

"There better not be a next time." Claire finally, bless her soul, came back. Now with the opened bottle of Everclear. She turned on her 'scary nurse voice'. "I mean it."

"Yes ma'am" Castle intoned, flinching slightly when Claire poured booze over his wounds.

"Fine." Foggy ran a hand through his hair, he swore that more of it was gray than it had been this morning. "He was white, and he was a bit on the younger side. Dressed like he was trying to be punk, all gray and black with these boots? Also, fingerless gloves."

Castle froze up at his description.

"Nelson." The man spoke slowly. "Could you tell me- like what his hair was like? His eyes too?"

"Both brown, and curly, why?"

"Fucking-" Castle, despite his injuries, scrambled to his feet and tugged on his shirt. Followed quickly by his vest. "C'mon, Red. We've got a job to finish."

"What?" Foggy's stomach started to sink.

"Nelson." Castle's tone was hard, serious. Those two things were generally his default, but they seemed to be even more extreme in that moment. "You just met the Biter."

She had a... Complicated relationship with her past, to say the least.

Helen, (because she'd _never_ be 'mom' to her, not after what she did), had died when she was young. Hell, she'd been a missing person for ten years. Stuff like that tends to mean she'd never be 'normal.'

She had only spent one year of her life a free person. Scratch that. She hadn't spent only one year being a 'free person', she'd only spent one year being a _person_ period.

She loved her dad. But she couldn't tell him what had happened to her. Where she'd been. What had happened to Helen and what she'd done. So instead she spun a web of lies and half-truths. Saying she didn't remember much of the past decade. (She did.) Saying that she didn't know where Helen was. (Six feet under.) Saying that she was afraid of doctors. (She wasn't, but it was for the best if they never took her vitals.)

She was good at spinning webs, so to speak. (She'd a lot of practice, after all.)

She wasn't exactly settled into life yet. Sometimes it was hard to explain why she ate so much. (She'd die without it.) Sometimes she'd find a language other than English of the tip of her tongue. (Especially when she was tired, or angry.) Sometimes it was a pain to find clothes that covered that _specific_ part of her left shoulder. (She didn't want anyone to see her brand.) Sometimes she'd find herself hoarding weapons and poisons without realizing it. (It was a hard habit to break.)

She was staring at the results of the latter in that moment, stashed beneath a loose floorboard under her bed. (It wasn't hard for her to lift the bed with one hand.)

Two knives, one a paring knife and the other a steak knife. A screwdriver. A hammer that she found in an alleyway last month. A multi tool. Some rat poison. Ant bait. Hell, she'd even been drying out and keeping apple seeds for the past couple weeks. Jesus Christ.

She sighed at herself and went to go cover it back up, but then she paused.

Well... She was about to do something dangerous. Better safe than sorry, right?

Poison would be impractical as a form of in-the-moment self defense. Which left.... No, not that... Or maybe....

She picked up the multi tool and flicked out the blade. Slowly, carefully, she tested its sharpness against her thumb. She gave a grimace as the buzz of _danger_ sparked painfully in the back of her head, and a few moments later, a bead of blood dripped down her palm.

That would work. She flicked it back into place and put it in her front jeans pocket.

She stood up slowly. The floor in her room was very creaky, so she had to be careful not to make too much noise. (Not that she wasn't trained to be silent. She was just... Rusty.)

She picked up her backpack and swung it over her shoulders, double checked that everything she was leaving behind was in place (A letter for her father, explaining in as little detail as possible that something from those ten years had come up, and she had to go. Her blanket tucked over extra pillows, her hair clippings where her head would rest.) Painstakingly slowly, she crawled to the window.

Gingerly, she glanced outside. She was glad that her window faced out into an alleyway, if it faced a busy street like her father's room, things could be difficult for her. (She couldn't let herself be spotted.)

There was nobody in the alley. Normally, in the late evening and early night, there would be people outside getting high. But it was after midnight, so the only living things awake outside were the rats. She could hear them shifting around, and could even track their tiny hearts if she really focused. There was a homeless man sleeping under a small awning, so she'd have to be careful to not wake him up.

Maybe it could be considered disturbing just how easily she fell back into the mindset of someone who was getting up to no good. It sure was a lot easier than trying to be normal.

(Maybe this was just the way she was meant to be.)

Without looking down, she jumped.

As it turned out, one of the neighbors of the abandoned bodega had a security camera, and now the entire internet was graced by a video of Red and Frank getting the tar beaten out of them. It would have been fucking embarrassing if the entire city wasn't terrified of the Biter by now. If they hadn't been, then watching it crush Daredevil and the Punisher at the same time definitely did the trick. It wasn't weird to see them getting fucked up, because at this point? To the people, the Biter wasn't human. It was a monster.

Frank was first approached by Stark the first night that he finally got back onto his game. Because fucking _apparently_ the Biter _might_ be ex-Hydra 'cause you see, some of the Biter's victims seemed awfully similar to Hydra agents that the fucker had killed. And the Avengers would _really_ appreciate if he and Red could come talk to them about what it was like. They wouldn't even try to arrest them or anything.

Frank didn't _want_ to go. But talking to the Avengers vs. the Biter potentially coming back for seconds? Easy. Fuck that. Lord knew it was probably angry that he tried to track it down not once, but twice. The first time, when he and Red earned some new scars for their trouble, and the second time after it bullied Nelson into telling it whether he and Red made it or not. He hadn't gotten even a trace of it that time, it essentially disappeared. Red has been angry about that one, more so than when he'd been injured. Red tended to get angry when people messed with his loved ones.

Frank had to be honest with himself. He was _afraid_ of the Biter. So he really didn't have any other option other than to pay a visit to the Avenger's Compound. Which was how he and Red found themselves in a needlessly fancy car, making their way out of the city. They sat it awkward silence for the most part. The chauffeur was a quiet, very grumpy person with the rather ironic name of 'Happy'. Frank didn't feel like talking, and Red was _pretending_ to be broody but was actually still dealing with fractured ribs.

The drive took a couple hours, and he'd be lying if he said it didn't make him antsy. When he could see the lights of the Compound in the direction, he briefly considered jumping out of the moving vehicle and making a break for it.

The car pulled up and slowed to a stop. He wasted no time in getting out of the car. Stark was leaning up against a wall outside.

"Frank Castle. Daredevil." Stark nodded. "Thank you for coming."

"Let's skip the pleasantries." Frank crossed his arms. Red shifted his weight from foot to foot beside him. "Just- get this over with?"

Something flickered across Stark's face. "Of course. Let's get a move on, then." Stark entered the building in front of them. The rest of the Avengers team waited patiently in the entrance. Did they not want Red and him to actually enter the building? Eh, probably. Frank wouldn't want them in his house either. He also noted that neither War Machine nor The Falcon were there.

Red stiffened and hissed quietly. Frank tilted his face in the man's direction.

"The walls are loud." Red whispered to him. "I'm having trouble hearing anything outside of this room."

Frank gave him a shallow nod of acknowledgment. That could be a problem.

"We're glad you two agreed to come." The Black Widow lounged casually on a stool, she held a shiny Starktablet in her hands. "You are two of the three confirmed people to survive this 'Biter'. The third being a child, any information you could give us could be helpful."

"You want its abilities, I'm guessing?" Frank assumed. He got a nod in response. "Super strength and super speed, obviously." Frank paused for a moment. Black Widow tapped something out on the tablet. Taking notes? "And it uh, stuck to the walls and ceiling at will?"

"Like... A gecko?" Stark stared at him disbelievingly.

"Yes, like a gecko."

"That's _probably_ just his gloves or something. They could be adhesive."

"Yeah, but he had fingerless gloves." Frank felt a small spike of annoyance at the fact they didn't believe him. "I don't think it had enough surface area to hold up something that weighs as much as a person."

"U-huh, sure." Stark turned to Red. "And you?"

"He knew we were coming." Red tilted his head to the side. His voice still sounded weak from his injuries. "Enhanced senses, maybe?"

"Yeah, that sounds like a possibility." Stark frowned in thought.

Rogers started to speak next. "What about his appearance?"

"White. Male. Curly-haired burnet. Brown eyes." Frank took over again. "Dressed in tactical stealth gear. With the aforementioned gloves."

"No mask?" Stark put a hand over his mouth.

"No mask." He confirmed.

"He isn't try to hide who is is." Stark noted quietly. "That's another point to the possibility of him being ex-Hydra."

"Or he just doesn't care." Rogers said slowly. "He could be like Castle- no offense."

"None taken."

"Sir." A voice rang from the ceiling out of nowhere. Frank jerked upright. "There appears to be an intruder."

"A _what_?" Stark's eyes flicked up to the ceiling. "FRI, run this by me?"

"There is an intruder who scaled a wall in the East wing and is now rapidly approaching this room via the vents." The voice, Stark's AI presumably, responded.

"Oh- _crap_." Stark tapped something on his watch, Frank guessed that it had something to do with his suit. "Everyone get ready, I guess. And let's hope this isn't the Biter." The _it probably is_ went unsaid.

Frank was glad he decided to bring a concealed weapon to this meeting now. He pulled the pistol out of its holster. Red went stock-still, tilting his head to the side. The Avengers all shifted into defensive positions around the room. Black Widow set down her tablet and pulled a knife out of seemingly nowhere, rolled her eyes, retrieved a second knife, and passed it to Hawkeye. The supersoldiers just braced themselves. The Scarlet Witch and Vision let energy gather around their hands. Stark waited for his suit.

At the same time as Stark's suit started to wrap around his body a single, awfully small-looking figure dropped from a ceiling vent.

He pointed his gun at the newcomer as they lifted their head. It was, apparently, not the Biter. This was a teenage girl with messily close-cropped blonde hair and angry-looking blue eyes. She was dressed- honestly? -she was dressed very practically for a stealth mission. She had way too much knowledge about how to stay hidden for someone her age. Dark gray everything, except for her shoes, which were soft-looking leather boots, and a dark navy vest.

"Mind telling us who you are?" Stark had his repulsors trained on her, she glanced at him briefly. Her eyes flitted across the entire room, locking with each of them momentarily.

"Who I am doesn't matter." She spoke with hissed words, and when she opened her mouth Frank could see- _oh fucking shit fangs._ He _recognized those,_ damnit. And he'd been hoping to never see them again.

"You're like the Biter." Red didn't actually look too battle-ready. He wasn't even in a fighting stance. His voice laced not with aggression, but curiosity. No, Red. This is how you get thirteen breaks in your rib cage again.

"Mm." She?- It?- grunted in acknowledgement. Silence stretched out for a moment. "Yeah, that's what you're all calling him, right?"

"He has a name?" Stark was one to speak. "Other than 'Biter' I mean."

"Peter." The not-Biter said, then added with a snort. "What kind of name is Biter? Could you imagine if someone actually named their kid that?"

"Peter...?" Stark gestured vaguely with his head. "Last name?"

"He doesn't have one."

"How old are you, kid?" Roger's voice was soft. He hadn't said anything since the girl arrived, and as soon as it became clear just how young she was he had lowered his arms.

"Fifteen. But that doesn't matter. We gonna talk about anything that matters? Or should I just leave?"

"Uh, don't." Rogers lifted his hands placatingly. "Do you have any connections to 'Peter', besides you two both being... Enhanced?"

"We trained and lived together for ten years." The not-Biter drawled. "He's my blood brother."

"Wait-" Stark spoke up again. "How old is _he_?"

"Same as me."

"Wait, wait." Rogers said, eyebrows rising. "The Biter is a _high schooler?_ "

"We both killed our first man at ten." Her voice was matter-of-fact. "Our training was completed when we were thirteen, and we became... What we are at fourteen. Fifteen is nothing, we're adults as far as Hydra was concerned."

"So you two _are_ former Hydra?"

"I suppose."

"If he's your blood brother, why'd you split up?" Frank finally started to lower his own gun as he spoke.

"I was told he was dead." Her words were blunt, but he didn't miss the slight tremor in her tone. "That was actually the catalyst for me making a run for it, to try and earn myself a life free of Hydra. I had nothing left. Evidently, they lied. He is clearly not dead."

"Ah."

Slowly, everyone else started to relax their weapons. The girl gave them a tiny smile and stood up straight. She combed a few strands of her hair away from her face with her fingers.

"Is there anyone else like you out there?" Stark questioned.

"Oh, they tried." She blinked and shrugged. "To make more I mean. There were sixty-six of us when they started. But the experiments killed them in the end. It's just the two of us now." Frank's heart stuttered a bit. The others were presumably the same age as this girl. They had really killed that many kids?

Black Widow, out of nowhere, threw her knife at the girl. The not-Biter wasn't facing her, but either way she still darted to the side and caught the knife in mid-air.

"So is it precognition or super-senses, then." Black Widow said, giving the girl a faint smile.

"Hm. Both." She grinned back, like the woman hadn't just throw a knife at her.

"Oh, that's different. A ty govorish' po russki?"

"Da. Oni govorili po-russki vokrug nas." She grinned. What the hell?

"Vy govorite na kakom-libo drugom yazyke?"

"Net. Prosto russkiy i angliyskiy."

"They're communicating." Stark stage-whispered, loudly.

"U tebya yest' sem'ya?" Now Barnes joined in, asking some kind of question.

"Prosto moy otets." She paused for a moment. "Oni deystvitel'no ponyatiya ne imeyut, chto my govorim?"

"Da." Black Widow said.

"Stark." The girl said after a moment of thinking. "Yego kostyum vyglyadit glupo. Ochen' krasochno Ochen' dramatichno."

"Ono delayet" Barnes said, nodding along. All three of them laughed.

"Oh- I believe I forgot to introduce myself." She gave something only _vaguely_ like a smile as she ran her fingertips over the knife. "You can call me Gwen."

Peter had a lot of names.

Spyder-66. The Biter of NYC, and, of course, his _real_ one. Peter, Pete, Petey. (Only Gwen called him by that last one.)

He knew that Gwen had a lot of names too. Spyder-65, Gwendolyne, Gwen, Gwenny. (And only he called Gwen by that one.)

But out of the two of them she was the only one that had a last name. Stacy. Peter probably had one once too, but he couldn't remember it. He had barely been able to remember his first name with Gwen's help. He'd forgotten his last name, and so had Gwen. They only remembered their first names because they would use them in private. When nobody was around.

But, apparently, she'd found her full name again.

Gwen was _alive._ She was still kicking and biting, like the goddamn fighter she was. Gwen was strong, it would take more than a transfer gone wrong to kill her. Hell, he remembered all too well that she was better at hand-to-hand than he ever was. (He still had the old scar to prove it.) He should have known better than to believe them when they said she was dead. (It wouldn't have been the first, nor the last time they lied.)

She was alive, but she'd dropped back off-grid. Probably because he'd come back to the city.

The city.

He had memories of it, but they were faint and splotchy. They were like the Impressionist paintings of the gallery he once had to infiltrate to kill a mark, three years ago now. Only vaguely there, all blurry colors and indefinite shapes. He remembered the towering buildings. He remembered a woman. And that was all he had. And he could only conjure up the memories of it for but a few seconds before it disappeared again, like blood in water, gradually being mixed in until you couldn't see it anymore.

New York, for him, was a place of smoke, ashes, and ghosts.

Well, and blood. (A lot of blood, really.)

He'd killed four marks here, Before, as Spyder-66. His second-ever mark, and the first woman he'd killed, had been a New Yorker, actually. And After, he'd now slaughtered ten under the name of the Biter.

Blood would be wherever he went, though. It was one of the most definite and solid parts of him. He'd killed fifty-three people for Hydra, then he'd killed thirty-five _of them._ Blood was inescapable.

He was a weapon. He was a predator. He could name every bone in the human body while he broke them in at least three different ways. He could _bite_ and _tear_ and _rip apart_ and until there was nothing left but viscera. It was what he knew how to do. It was one of the few things he was taught, and the only thing that really mattered in the end.

Here, in the darkened alleyways of the the City that Never Sleeps, he could use that.

He'd take the ashes and mingle them with the blood and build himself a tower taller than the Empire State. (And maybe, just maybe, Gwen might join him too, and together they could finally have a shot at being human.)

**Author's Note:**

> chloe's game with her dolls is based off of something i had going with my lps when i was little! it can be hard to get into the mindset of a little kid, so i decided to use that as a tool to help myself write her. also the "best friend of Barbie, steve" is absolutely the steve we all know and love. i thought it would be neat if chloe with playing w/ avengers figurines as well as barbie
> 
> also i wrote the russians' words romanized here, cause frank wouldnt know the russian alphabet, so instead he'd hear it the way it sounds to him.
> 
> Translations:
> 
> Do you speak Russian?
> 
> Yes. They spoke Russian around us.
> 
> Do you speak another language?
> 
> No. Just English and Russian. 
> 
> Do you have a family?
> 
> Just my father. They really have no idea what we're saying?
> 
> Yes.
> 
> Stark. His suit looks silly. Very colorful. Very dramatic.
> 
> It does.


End file.
